Film Forum

(1975) “What we are and what we seem/Are but a dream, a dream within a dream.” Valentine’s Day, 1900, and a fine day for an excursion to an aboriginal holy place by the girls of a Downunder finishing school. But, at the end of a sensuously lazy summer day, some of them don’t come back. One of the great puzzle films, Weir’s second work was the breakthrough for the renascent Australian cinema. Joan Lindsay’s original novel (written when she was nearly eighty) turns 50 this year, with a new edition from Penguin Classics. DCP. Approx. 115 min.

DCP courtesy Janus Films. 

Reviews

“A film of haunting mystery and buried sexual hysteria. It also employs two of the hallmarks of modern Australian films: beautiful cinematography and stories about the chasm between settlers from Europe and the mysteries of their ancient new home.”
– Roger Ebert

“Haunting… a subtle and indelible mystery. Decades after its release, the movie still chills.”
–  Monica Castillo, The New York Times

“Among other things it knows that there are some romantic longings, especially in the young, that are so overwhelming they simply cannot be contained. The result is a movie that is both spooky and sexy.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times